Two UTSA Faculty Members Honored with Distinguished Achievement Awards

Charles Field, professor in the division of visual arts, joined the UTSA Faculty in 1974. Field has been named the winner of the President's Distinguished Achievement Award Honoring Outstanding Performance, Creative Production or Other Scholarly Achievement. Since receiving his MFA, professor Field has exhibited almost every year, including over 20 solo exhibitions.

Many of his landscape paintings embody South Texas, and he has extended his enthusiasm for this landscape into his instruction by offering plein-air courses at the Majestic Foundation Ranch in the Hill Country.

Groups recently acquiring his work include McGraw Hill Publications in New York; USAA; The SBC Corporation, The McNay Art Museum, and UTSA's College of Business.

With support from a COLFA Faculty Research Grant, Field will paint on the Atlantic Coast from Maine to Nova Scotia this summer.

For the last 20 years, Amir Karimi, associate professor of mechanical engineering, has been striving to make UTSA one of the country's top engineering facilities. For his efforts he was honored with the President's Distinguished Achievement Awards for Excellence in University Service.

He has played an indispensable role in the creation and growth of the university's mechanical engineering program. Karimi has served as head of the program for many years and has also chaired the mechanical engineering graduate committee.

He also chairs UTSA's standing committee on radiation safety and has served on more than half a dozen other committees.

Highly regarded by his colleagues and engineering professionals outside the university, Karimi has made valuable contributions to national organizations such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Society for Engineering Education.